The Campaign Builder's Guild

I have a new version up for those who are interested.  I think it is much better, but it was even petty good a week ago.  And in another week or two it will be even better.  The big issue right now is for me to work on the icons used on the map so they look good even when zoomed in.  Here's a sample map:
 

Thank you! I'm looking at revising the icons so they scale a little better, but I am trying to go for the look of the Dragon maps mentioned in my original post.

Hi Folks,

Over the past month in my "spare" time I've been working on a program that allows a user to create hex world maps like those in "The Voyage of the Princess Ark" Dragon magazine article series.

I had previously created hex map brushes for GIMP based on those maps, but the core architecture of this hex map tool came to me and I wanted to do it for a number of reasons.  I know there is another tool called "Hex Mapper" but I felt this new software that I'm tentatively calling "Hexographer" has a different approach and I have some other ideas to expand it.

This is the first place that I'm posting about it because I received some good feedback here on my other project and this forum has building worlds as one of its primary focuses.  

Please don't post about it elsewhere at least for a few days.  I'd like to have some time to fix any major flaws a smaller audience finds before many more people see it.  Currently I know of one issue: drawing lines when zoomed in is a little funky if you are drawing by clicking the points of the line one by one. (You can also draw lines by simply dragging.)  But I also have a few other small things I want to add to this version before adding new, larger features later.  An example of these small things is a few icons are missing (whaling, battle, mines, shipwreck.)  Another example is I might tweak all the icons so they look a little nicer when zoomed in.

I'd love to get your initial reactions, what you would like to see added and if you encounter some bugs.  I'm especially open to constructive criticism, but if you can start off with "I loved xyz and abc!" I'll feel better. :)

I've got another new version up.  (I've put out updates almost weekly, as I had planned.)

If you haven't looked it over recently, take another look!  The UI is vastly improved (snappier/faster, has a "new charge wizard" and more) and it downloads in just one minute on a cable modem. (2-3 minutes on DSL, I think.)

I think back to the '83(?) Greyhawk books where it had a coat or arms for every kingdom... this lets you do something like that and each coat of arms may take only 5 minutes to put together once you get going.

I've made a bunch of updates since I've last posted here about this project.  Here's a list of what's new:
*Added a "save image" button to save the design as a .png image.
*Majorly refactored the code. This shouldn't cause any functionality changes, but it will make adding features and fixing bugs easier in the future.
*Users can now select fonts and font styles in the name/motto window.
*Added 10 more charges (several eagles, sea horse, sea lion, and sheep passant).
*Added support for quartering the shield.
*Added 10 more charges (annulet, crescent, cross moline, double quatrefoil, label, martlet, martlet volent, monkey, mullet, quatrefoil).
*Fixed a bug that caused the "flip" option to flip all creature and symbol charges instead of just the one you are editing.
*Moved the name/motto editor to a separate pop up window to free more space for editing the charges.
*Added 10 more charges (battleaxe, lance, sword, owl, comet, cannon ball, cinquefoil, oaktree, Cross Maltese, and Cross Patee) to the software.
*Fixed a bug that caused the program to not run in some web browsers.
*Added the ability to do counter-charging for ordinaries.

Please let me know what you think or if you have any ideas for new features or if there are particular charges you'd like to see added.

When I created my GIMP hex map brushes, I went through the old-ish Dragon magazines with the "Voyage of the Princess Ark" series because I was going for hexes that matched that style.  Anyway, here is that list:
jungle
grasslands
farmland
light forest
heavy forest
forested hills
rocky hills
mountain
mountains
volcano
badlands
cactus scrub
heavy cactus
rocky desert
sand dunes
swamp
marsh
ocean
sea
shoals
reef

(They also had other icons you put on top of the terrain for cities, towns, ruins, lighthouses, battle sites, mines, etc.)

Hopefully that helps, but alas I don't have time to spare for writing up descriptions.

Thanks again Ninja... I updated my sig.

Hi all,

I got pointed here by ninja d's signature in another forum and I thought many of you might be interested in my latest project: a coat of arms creator.

For players, if you've got a knight-type of character (or even some others where the character has a government commission or something like that) you may like to create a coat of arms.

But more importantly (particularly this forum), for campaigns you may want to create the coat of arms for your governments or other organizations.

The website also has a bit of a primer on heraldry, including what many of the creatures and symbols usually mean so you can use that as a guide for what to include on a coat of arms.

Take a look at the examples (link below, but 2 are also posted in this message) to see what's possible, then open the instructions in one tab/window and then open the software designer in another web browser window.

Main Page: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/
Examples: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/index.php?title=Examples
Instructions: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/index.php?title=Instructions
Design Software: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/index.php?title=Design_Software

Please send me feedback (links on the website) or post constructive criticism or positive reviews here.  Thanks! I'll be adding more options (creatures and symbols, ordinaries, etc.) as well as more features every week or so.